On Friday 8 April the Unemployed People’s Movement & the Women’s Social Forum will be marching for toilets, electricity and housing, in Grahamstown, South Africa. 'Toilets are an important issue for the safety and dignity of our people. It is an absolute disgrace that all these years after democracy so many of our people have inadequate toilets or no toilets at all.'

The GAVI Alliance has already established a panel of potential Independent Review Committee (IRC) members to support their innovative grant proposal process, and progress monitoring and evaluation system. GAVI is keen that this panel should grow and more closely reflect the demographic profile of its low and middle income partner countries. Applications to join the IRC panel are therefore invited from suitably post graduate qualified and experienced health and public health experts with a range of backgrounds. Below are English and French versions of the advert, together with links to .PDF files of the adverts.

The Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) is offering the following three short courses during the month of June 2011:

1. Introduction to Refugee Law (June 5-9, 2011):
2. Meeting the Psychosocial Needs of Refugees (June 12-16, 2011):
3. Understanding Irregular Migration (June 19-23, 2011)

The GAVI Alliance has already established a panel of potential Independent Review Committee (IRC) members to support their innovative grant proposal process, and progress monitoring and evaluation system. GAVI is keen that this panel should grow and more closely reflect the demographic profile of its low and middle income partner countries. Applications to join the IRC panel are therefore invited from suitably post graduate qualified and experienced health and public health experts with a range of backgrounds. Below are English and French versions of the advert, together with links to .PDF files of the adverts.

Nascent only a decade ago in Africa, the ICT sector has been growing in recent years at an unparalleled pace. In some countries, various studies note, the 'information economy' is becoming one of the main drivers for economic growth more generally.

A landmark lawsuit filed on 29 March in US federal court seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seeds and to prohibit the company from suing those whose crops become genetically contaminated. The Public Patent Foundation filed suit on behalf of 270,000 people from 60 organic and sustainable businesses and trade associations, including thousands of certified-organic farmers, arguing the invalidity of any patent that poisons people and the environment, and that is not useful to society, two hallmarks of US patent law.

Sudan has accused Israel of carrying out an air strike that killed two people in a car near the city of Port Sudan on Tuesday. Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti said one man was Sudanese, but the identity of the other passenger was unknown. There has been no comment from Israel. But correspondents say Israel believes weapons are being smuggled through the region to Gaza.

The human rights organisation Front Line launched its second Annual Report on Human Rights Defenders which highlights global trends and developments in the situation of human rights defenders in 2010 and analyses the situation in each region of the world. The report highlights the fact that despite some positive developments and the wave of uprisings sweeping across the Middle East at year end, overall 2010 was not a good year for human rights defenders who continued to face harassment and repression in many countries.

The current financial crisis is likely to affect women particularly severely. In many developing countries where women work in export-led factories, or in countries where migrant women workers are the backbone of service industries, women’s jobs have taken the greatest hit. The International Labour Organisation estimates that the economic downturn could lead to 22 million more unemployed women in 2009, jeopardising the gains made in the last few decades in women’s empowerment. In many countries, however, the impact goes far beyond the loss of formal jobs, as the majority of women tend to work in the informal sector.

The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it may open investigations into the 'widespread and systematic' killings in Côte d’Ivoire, including the reported mass murder of civilians, saying it is gathering information on alleged crimes by all parties to the conflict. 'The OTP [office of the prosecutor] has been conducting a preliminary examination in Ivory Coast and the next step will be for the Prosecutor to use his independent...power to request authorization from the pre-trial chamber in order to initiate an investigation,' the ICC said in a statement.

Following years of criticism from environmentalists and some governments the World Bank has proposed new rules regarding carbon-intensive coal plants, reports the Guardian. The new rules would allow lending for coal-fired plants only to the world's poorest nations and would only lend after other alternatives, such as renewable energy, had been ruled out.

The Zambian government has dropped charges against two Chinese managers accused of attempted murder after firing on miners during a pay dispute. Xiao Li Shan and Wu Jiu Hua said the workers' behaviour, at the Collum coal mine in October, had been threatening. The shooting left at least 11 injured. China has invested more than $400m in the copper-rich country.

With the rise of the iPad, Kindle, and similar eReaders and touchscreen devices, tablet-shaped form factor computing power has become much more portable and yet sizable. This holds great promise for educators on par with the introduction of slates, which swept across classrooms at the turn of the century before last. Visit the Educational Technology Debate website for more information.

While the World Bank is developing a new social protection and labour strategy, its general approach to health and continuing push for privatisation of public services have come under fire again. Ghana’s national health insurance scheme, presented by the Bank as a success model for developing countries is 'unfair, inefficient and un-transparent', according to a report published in March by Ghanaian NGOs ISODEC, Alliances for Reproductive Health, and Essential Services Platform, with support from Oxfam International. It revealed that Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) - which has received technical assistance from the Bank - could be benefitting only 18 per cent of the country’s total population, despite the fact that every Ghanaian citizen pays for it through value-added tax (VAT).

The Industrial Relations Court in Blantyre has granted an injunction restraining the University Council, the regulatory authority of the University of Malawi, from 'completely shutting down' two constituent colleges of the University of Malawi. The Council ordered that the Blantyre-based Polytechnic and Zomba-based Chancellor College be sealed to prevent all academic and general staff from accessing their offices following the now seven-week-old stand-off between lecturers and Inspector General of Police Peter Mukhito. But the lecturers appeared before the Industrial Relations Court arguing that the Council's order was illegal.

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) have condemned US Representative Chris Smith’s recent trip to Kenya, where he attacked the country’s new constitution and opened a new front in the international offensive of his war on women. Smith spoke under the guise of human rights at the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum. He condemned the new Kenyan constitution’s decriminalisation of abortion in emergency situations or to protect the life or health of the pregnant woman, telling audience members that 'we need a world that is free of abortion'.

Many State parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) assert that they cannot fully implement the Convention because it is in conflict with Shari‘ah, or family laws and practices based on the Qur’an. This research project on CEDAW examined the reports of 44 Muslim majority and significant minority countries (2005-2010) that justify not implementing portions of the treaty based on these perceived conflicts.

The state-controlled trade union federation that for over half a century was employed by Egyptian rulers to suppress workers' protests and mobilise voters for sham elections appears to be crumbling with the recent ouster of president Hosni Mubarak. 'There is a movement against state control of unions,' says Mohamed Trabelsi, a regional specialist on union activities at the International Labour Organisation (ILO). 'You now have many strikes and labour protests in Egypt, and workers in many sectors have started to organise and form free and independent unions.'

Civil society organisations want to see government taking a firmer stand to stop antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) from being smuggled onto the black market. Government needs to take the theft of anti-retroviral drugs or ARVs seriously as people’s lives are at risk. This is according to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the National Association of People Living with AIDS (NAPWA). Many HIV-positive people are now afraid to go fetch their treatment from public health facilities for fear of being victims of people stealing their medicine.

With about 30 million Africans living outside their home countries, migration is a vital lifeline for the continent. Yet African governments need to do more to realise the full economic benefits of the phenomenon, says a new report by the African Development Bank and the World Bank. The report, 'Leveraging Migration for Africa: Remittances, Skills, and Investments', presents data from new surveys. The report finds evidence that suggest migration and remittances reduce poverty in the origin communities.